Our View: Time to raise the din of inequity

The Legislature has a far-reaching transportation bond bill on the table, and who would be surprised to see both houses put off decisive action until the session draws to an end this summer?

The Legislature has a far-reaching transportation bond bill on the table, and who would be surprised to see both houses put off decisive action until the session draws to an end this summer?

Business as usual, maybe, but that will be unacceptable for two very important reasons.

First of all, there is matter of $300 million in Chapter 90 funds tied to the bill, the money that is counted on in every community in the commonwealth to maintain roads.

If that money isn't appropriated until late in the construction season, as happened last year, local highway departments will be unable to do the planning they need to do to get the work they need to get done before cold weather comes.

Ron Labelle and Zeb Arruda, New Bedford's commissioner of Public Infrastructure and highway supervisor, spoke with the editorial board on Thursday to explain that the pothole repairs, crack filling, line striping, planning and more that take place annually in the city can't be done without knowing the budget bottom line.

As Arruda pointed out, postponements of these routine projects, as well as the major road repairs that require coordination with private utilities to upgrade what runs below the roads, increase costs tenfold. Consider an analogy: The money you save on motor oil for your car keeps money in your pocket today ... and it could cost you your engine or your car tomorrow.

The second reason the transportation bill can't gather dust is what it means to SouthCoast.

South Coast Rail funding is in that bill, and despite the governor's vow not to sign a bill without it included, political realities being what they are, it is far from guaranteed.

The money spent on bringing commuter rail to the only part of the state that lacks it is a matter of equity and a source of economic development for not only SouthCoast but the whole state.

Our local delegation knows this and has been vocal. At this juncture — the meeting of this once-in-a-generation transportation plan and the need for swift action on Chapter 90 appropriations — our legislators must be more than vocal.

It's time for them to be on the floors of the House and Senate hollering about the unfairness of the SouthCoast's support of commuter rail for every other part of the state within 50 miles of Boston with nothing farther south than the Lakeville station (which, by the way, should be proof enough of what stations in Fall River, New Bedford and Taunton will do locally and for the state).

It's time to grab their colleagues by the lapels until the message gets through that success for SouthCoast lifts the whole state, and that stagnation drags it down.

And they need to keep that Chapter 90 money in the bill because taking it out for expediency puts the momentum on South Coast Rail at risk.

Let's hope that when House Speaker Robert DeLeo — a supporter of South Coast Rail — visits New Bedford for a Chamber of Commerce legislative luncheon April 11 that all our voices spur him to swift, decisive action, but let's not wait until then to raise the din.

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